


wild geese

by butchkirkhammett



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Guilt, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Emotional Tension, chosen names only zone as declared by my trans ass, lafayette era, the touch politics of comforting the boy you're in love with who loves you back but can't admit it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:00:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29484084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butchkirkhammett/pseuds/butchkirkhammett
Summary: Tonight Axl won’t look at him. Keeps his head down and not-bowed, a thin sheet of red hair between them that sways with the uneven wind. Through it, Izzy can see his jaw clenched, cheek caving sharply under the bone. He thinks if he stuck his tongue in Axl’s mouth he’d taste blood.or:Izzy cares for Axl.
Relationships: Axl Rose/Izzy Stradlin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	wild geese

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by THE poem from miss mary oliver:
> 
> _you do not have to be good.  
>  you do not have to walk on your knees  
> for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.  
> you only have to let the soft animal of your body  
> love what it loves.  
> tell me about despair, yours, and i will tell you mine.  
> meanwhile the world goes on._
> 
> (from wild geese)

Axl’s standing in his bedroom again. Stands there in front of the open window he’s just crawled in through, panting and trembling under a shaggy curtain of red hair, something under his skin that isn’t rage but can twist itself into something exactly like it at the drop of a hat. 

Izzy pulls himself up from where he’s sat on the floor, propped against his bed, and takes a few steps forwards. “Hey,” he says. Axl says nothing back.

He doesn’t know exactly how Axl gets here, seeing as he doesn’t have a bike like Izzy does, but he’s never asked and Axl’s never offered. Just another thing they never talk about.

“The principal almost caught you this morning.”

Axl doesn’t so much as shrug. Izzy considers him. 

Cool evening air is starting to seep into the room, early enough in the fall that it doesn’t bite yet; but the warning stands. He takes a few more steps. Axl’s within touching distance now, close enough that Izzy can see the muscle jumping in his forearm, rabbit quick. He doesn’t look pissed, though. So Izzy touches him.

(This is how it goes: someone always has to go first. Axl’s brave in ways Izzy can’t begin to comprehend, but this is something he braces himself for. Like the deer standing very still among the trees. 

Izzy goes first.)

He lays his hands over the soft parts of Axl’s sides and feels the animal of his body tense. He doesn’t stroke or soothe – it’s not in either of their natures – just rests them there, first two fingers slotting into the far-too obvious grooves at the bottom of Axl’s rib cage, until he can feel the muscles unclench. 

“Tell me next time you’re cutting class,” he murmurs, “so I can go with you.”

There’s still that ever-present stiffness in his shoulders, but Izzy’s pretty sure it won’t ever go away, can’t imagine Axl being anything but what he always is: a coyote with its foot caught in a trap. What freedom would do to Axl – what Axl would do – he doesn’t let himself think about for too long. 

Still, Axl’s muscles loosen, stuttering in increments like he’s trying to catch himself. The space between the first touch and the softening is getting smaller. Izzy holds that knowledge close where no one else can touch it, not even Axl.

Outside a bird caws, loud in their shared quiet. Tonight Axl won’t look at him. Keeps his head down and not-bowed, a thin sheet of red hair between them that sways with the uneven wind. Through it, Izzy can see his jaw clenched, cheek caving sharply under the bone. He thinks if he stuck his tongue in Axl’s mouth he’d taste blood.

And then more blood. And more. And more, like a biblical flood, until he stopped breathing. Because Axl’s not a fucking _queer._ And he won’t let Izzy be one either. 

But Izzy’s seen how he looks at him.

The longest strands of Axl’s hair spills over Izzy’s shoulders, tickling the open skin above the collar. His head dips down, lower, lower, but never comes to rest against him – Axl doesn’t bow his head to anyone, Izzy knows, can’t distinguish relief from defeat, has the constant vigilance of someone who feels the inescapable eyes of God upon him. 

(There are moments Izzy feels like doing something reckless to shield him from that gaze, like cracking open his chest and letting Axl crawl inside. But of course the Lord is not hindered by something as flimsy and impermanent as flesh, and Axl could never let himself hide, no matter how much the curl of his spine begs otherwise.)

He grips a little tighter, feels what little give the soft skin has beneath his fingers, and Axl inhales sharply through his nose; a quiet noise that betrays the bruises under his shirt. Just that one sound. But it’s enough, and Izzy knows.

Izzy doesn’t ask stupid shit like “your dad?” that they both know the answer to, and he doesn’t ease his grip – he learned long ago not to make the mistake of treating Axl like something that could break, because he likes to pretend he’s not. 

It’s the biggest joke Izzy’s ever heard. It’s not even funny.

Emotionally, Axl is spun glass. There are days that breathing wrong could shatter him. And when it does, because something always does, inevitable as sunburn in the summer, somebody has to bring the glue. Izzy’s not glue, he’s not that kind of guy, but he’s holding Axl all the same, tight enough to feel the cut of his rib bones.

So Izzy won’t change his grip, even on the days he’d rather push Axl’s head into the crook of his neck and hold him there until he can pretend the edges of Axl aren’t maybe too jagged for him to handle. (And the days when Izzy wants to be cruel, grip _hard,_ dig his fingers into the bruises he didn’t make until another sound is forced out of Axl and he has to give up the whole fucking pretense… well. He’s not always nice, alright? Axl’s the one singing the gospel every Sunday.)

Izzy knows a lot of people pity Axl – for the bruises and the cops and the rage – at least right up until they actually meet him, but he doesn’t. Doesn’t know what he feels about Axl, really. Rationally he knows he must care, or he wouldn’t be doing this. Letting Axl into his room and touching him. And the other stuff.

Listening to him, his screams and stories and silences. Sharing his weed, loaning him a couple bucks, taking him out to the fields on his bike where they lay side-by-side in the tall grass. Listening to records together. Splitting a stolen bottle and jerking him off and not saying a goddamn thing about it afterward.

Because Izzy’s seen how he looks at him, okay? He knows. 

If it didn’t hurt so much he’d almost find it funny. It must kill Axl to want him like this, in this filthy, sinful way he hates so much. He wonders if it haunts him, keeps him up at night the way it does Izzy, except Izzy’s not fucking _ashamed_ or whatever, he’s just _hungry–_

And he realizes, now, that Axl’s face is suddenly very close to his own.

_“Iz,”_ Axl breathes. It’s the first thing he’s said since he got here. And Izzy wants to kiss him so badly he can already taste the blood.

His hands squeeze tighter into the soft skin and Axl does that pained little gasp again and jerks his chin up like he does when he’s about to get into a fight, but their faces are so close the point of his nose bumps against Izzy’s jaw. Instantly he’s yanking himself back, bristling, and the motion pulls him out of Izzy’s grasp so that Izzy’s hands fumble at his sides before latching firmly over his hips in a steadying motion.

The next gasp is different. When Izzy meets his eyes, he looks _pissed._

And something else. Scared, maybe. “The fuck do y’think you’re doing?” he bites out. His shoulders are almost up to his ears. He’s got a vice grip on Izzy’s arms, tight enough that Izzy can already see the handprint forming on pale skin.

“Nothin’,” Izzy says, a little dizzy. What _is_ he doing? That something else in Axl’s face is starting to look a bit like betrayal. His gut swoops.

He’s suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s standing in his bedroom a little past midnight with the window open, holding the hips of a boy who thinks fags burn in hell in a town that agrees with him.

He lets go of Axl, vaguely nauseous, and goes to step away, happy to disregard the fact that this is his own room in favor of beating a fast retreat – but finds that he can’t. His arms are yanked forward as cold hands cover his and shove them back down over bony hips. He blinks down in disbelief.

Axl gives him a pointed look.

“You weren’t doin’ nothin’.”

He says it slow and firm, and at first Izzy can’t decide what it’s supposed to mean. An affirmation, maybe, or a warning. It’s inconspicuous but oddly, strikingly vulnerable, and he thinks about all the things – his dad and his church and the holy judgement – Axl has carried into this moment. Into every moment. And he realizes what Axl’s not saying. 

_I know. I know._

“Yeah,” he mumbles. Axl’s hands drop.

Now Izzy eases his shoulders into it, shifts and shuffles his stance so he’s not in a half-turn anymore. It brings their faces closer again, not like before but enough that Axl looks away. All his muscles are tensed again. His hair brushes over his shoulder and Izzy can see his profile against the sky beyond the window. He looks at once both young and old, and Izzy’s reminded of the description of that ghost from that book by Dickens they read freshman year. The ghost of Christmas future. 

Izzy’s not thinking about the future now. Or Dickens.

He flexes his fingers over Axl’s hips experimentally. There’s no sound but Axl whips his head back around as his body twitches. He eyes Izzy warily, gaze flicking over his shoulder around the room for some invisible watcher, and Izzy gets the urge again to tuck him away and shield him.

He tugs Axl forward until their chests bump and Axl goes stiff all over again. Then he slides his hands up his sides to around his skinny back wraps his arms around him. 

“C’mon, man,” he murmurs into the red strands draped across Axl’s shoulder. For a moment they both stand there, Izzy holding Axl in the middle of the room while night breathes steadily outside, like before but closer, bodies pulled so close they could melt into each other if only Axl would let them.

And slowly Axl begins to soften.

**Author's Note:**

> on [tumblr](https://metallicasbian.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
